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Old 08-19-2014, 08:28 AM
 
Location: Mid Atlantic USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Caravelli View Post
Supposedly German is the largest ancestry group in the US, but those with some British (English and Scottish) ancestry might be unreported. Most of those who identify as just 'American' likely have British and Irish ancestry. Still, I wonder why the US isn't as dominated by people of British ancestry like Australia, NZ and a lesser extent Canada, since it began as a British colony or colonies. Those 3 nations also received a lot of Irish, especially since Ireland was until British rule until 1916, although the US did too. How come cities like New York, Boston, Philly are more known for Italians, Irish or even Jews than British/English/Scottish Americans? Weirdly, someone with the last name 'Smith' in NYC is most likely black.

Not that Australia didn't receive a ton of other immigrants, but it seems English Americans especially seem either unreported or strangely underrepresented in the States.

Simple really. Australia is Britain with sunshine.

Think it had to do with both Australia and Canada being colonies of the UK, similar form of govt, head of state being the UK Sovereign, etc.

The US, after breaking with the UK, charted a totally diff course, and was not really very friendly with the UK. We almost went to war with the UK during the US Civil War. As Lincoln said, "one war at a time".

 
Old 08-19-2014, 08:44 AM
 
Location: Mid Atlantic USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by irlinit View Post
English Americans probably don't always report it.. they just see themselves as American is my guess

Here is why.


Where are the English-Americans? | England calling


From the article:


There is one seemingly glaring omission from the catalogue of the culturally undecided: English-Americans. I say seemingly because there is a most obvious explanation for their absence: England was the cultural founder of the USA. Englishness is the default culture of the USA. Consequently, when the English have emigrated to the USA over the centuries they have not come to a land they felt was wholly alien or with a sense of victimhood or paranoia about their new home.

The English were the numerically dominant settlers from the Jamestown settlement in 1607 until the Revolution. Moreover, and this is the vital matter, they were overwhelmingly the dominant settlers for the first one hundred years. At the time of the first US census English descended settlers formed, according to the historical section of the American Bureau of Census, sixty per cent of the white population (http://tinyurl.com/67faop70 )and the majority of the rest of the white population was from the non-English parts of Britain ( In 1790 the population of the USA was 3,929,214 of which 3,172,006 were white and 757,208 black. http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0056/tab01.pdf).

It is possible that English ancestry was downplayed in the 1790 census and for much of the 19th century because of the anti-British feeling caused by the American Revolution and various disputes afterwards such as the war of 1812. If so, the under recording of English ancestry would be amplified as the population expanded as time went on as the descendants of those wrongly classified continued the incorrect classification. However, whichever figures are taken one thing is certain, by 1790 the template for American society was cut and most importantly English was the dominant language, a fact which alone shows who were the dominant group for no minority could force a language on a majority.

In the House of Commons on 22 March 1775 Edmund Burke made a plea for understanding of the American colonists’ demands which was firmly based on their Englishness:

“…the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen…. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on English principles. The people are Protestants… a persuasion not only favourable to liberty, but built upon it…. My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government,—they will cling and grapple to you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once
understood that your government may be one thing and their privileges another, that these two things may exist without any mutual relation,—the cement is gone, the cohesion is loosened, and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect
will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia. But, until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you…”(http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15198/15198-h/15198-h.htm#CONCILIATION_WITH_THE_COLONIES).

The colonists for their part more often than not themselves as English. Even the rebels placed their rebellion on the ground that they were defending true English liberty, a liberty that had been usurped by the king. The Declaration of independence is a catalogue of breaches of what the colonists considered were their rights as Englishmen. (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/american-declaration-of-independence/)
 
Old 08-19-2014, 09:04 AM
 
Location: Gatineau, Québec
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fikatid View Post
Very interesting article, and the fluctuating numbers on the English ancestries reported. I wondered if the Irish number has suffered the same decline.
Irish is not declining as fast in anglosphere countries as it is very "in vogue" as an identity with the music, good humour, St. Patrick's Day and all that jazz. In fact many people are searching their family trees to find a smidgen of Irish in order to lay claim to the identity.

Even in here in Quebec, where it is said that 40% of the population has at least some Irish blood.
 
Old 08-19-2014, 09:19 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fikatid View Post
Very interesting article, and the fluctuating numbers on the English ancestries reported. I wondered if the Irish number has suffered the same decline.
Not really, here's the numbers of Irish Americans over the past 30 years:

1980: 40 million
1990: 38 million
2000: 30 million
2010: 34 million

Source: Irish American - Wikipedia

There was a small decline but it's still around 35 million
 
Old 08-19-2014, 02:34 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tom77falcons View Post
Think it had to do with both Australia and Canada being colonies of the UK, similar form of govt, head of state being the UK Sovereign, etc.
Most of Australia's system of government is alien to the British model: a federal structure, a written constitution voted on by the people, election of all members of the legislature, a party political Senate which is "the state's House" with the role of protecting "state's rights", preferential and proportional representation voting methods. The only common aspect is that the Executive are members of the legislature; but that's not a uniqely British arrangement.

The concept of "head of State" is actually foreign to the Australian constitution, and as a result there has been a lot of debate over the years as to who that UK/US concept shoud be applied to: a figurehead monarch who can play no role in the legislative process or the exercise of power, or the position that does exercise the powers of heads of state of other countries - the Governor General as appointed by the government of the day.

New Zealand is probably closest to the UK in terms of its system of government, but there still are some signficant differences - no House of Lords equivalent, and German style voting.
 
Old 08-19-2014, 03:32 PM
 
Location: Mid Atlantic USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard1098 View Post
Most of Australia's system of government is alien to the British model: a federal structure, a written constitution voted on by the people, election of all members of the legislature, a party political Senate which is "the state's House" with the role of protecting "state's rights", preferential and proportional representation voting methods. The only common aspect is that the Executive are members of the legislature; but that's not a uniqely British arrangement.

The concept of "head of State" is actually foreign to the Australian constitution, and as a result there has been a lot of debate over the years as to who that UK/US concept shoud be applied to: a figurehead monarch who can play no role in the legislative process or the exercise of power, or the position that does exercise the powers of heads of state of other countries - the Governor General as appointed by the government of the day.

New Zealand is probably closest to the UK in terms of its system of government, but there still are some signficant differences - no House of Lords equivalent, and German style voting.

The fact remains that Australia is far far more similar to the UK in everything from sports to politics than the US. And looking from the Republic I live in, your system of govt with a PM, and a Governor General, seems far more similar to Canada and the UK than it does to the US.

The question was why more British immigration to Australia. As a friend of mine, born and raised in Liverpool, and ended up in Philly via Sydney (he lived in Sydney for five plus years) put it, "Australia feels much more like home than America." Btw, he voted to keep the Queen precisely for that reason in your referendum.

Judging by some of the posts I see over and over on this Australia forum, there really seems to be some people from Australia that are a little defensive about this very close relationship with the UK. Why is that? I'll bet if you ask 100 people on the street in the UK "where would you rather move Australia or America", by 20 to 1 they would choose Australia.

On a side note, this past weekend I was away in coastal Delaware. I met two Aussies travelling around the US. Great people they were, and enjoyable to have a conversation with about the differences. As soon as I brought up Australia and the tight connection with the UK (from my perspective), they got this same defensiveness and tried to pooh pooh the whole notion that Australia was similar to the UK.

Why is your navy called a "royal" navy? Why is there "royal" this and "royal" that? Our constitution bans titles of nobility precisely because of the years of British rule, why is that not rooted out of your constitution? People in Australia get knighted and they are called "Sir". Not allowed in the US.

Culturally you have all sorts of connections with the UK. Cricket anyone? Ashes? The Union Jack is part of your flag. Pictures of the Queen, a head of state from another land, are in your public buildings? This is why people from the UK feel much more at home in Australia than America. Same with Canada.

The US is much more continental European after waves and waves of immigration that wasn't all UK based after the break with Britain. And now, after years and years of intermarriage, there are very few Americans of any one single Euro ethnic group. A white person in the US is far more likely to be a mixed European, maybe even with a British surname, than an Australian. Even in the US South, which seems more British than a lot of the US, many people there have French and German ancestry mixed in.

When I read this article, it seems very clear that Australia still is very close to the UK Monarch. This would be very foreign to a US citizen.


'Pre-eminent' Australians to be made knights or dames under a new award, PM Tony Abbott says - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)



It will be automatically bestowed on the serving governor-general with up to four created per year by Her Majesty the Queen on the recommendation of the prime minister.
The first dame is the outgoing Governor-General Quentin Bryce and the first knight will be her successor, former Defence Force chief General Peter Cosgrove, who will take on the title of "sir" when he is sworn in on Friday.
 
Old 08-19-2014, 04:28 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tom77falcons View Post
Judging by some of the posts I see over and over on this Australia forum, there really seems to be some people from Australia that are a little defensive about this very close relationship with the UK. Why is that?
To lable those debates "defensive" is erroneous, as it dismisses as invalid discussion of real social, economic and historical events and realities. I think Aussies are also a little surprised at how superficial and ill informed a lot of comments coming from some US, UK and NZ posters are on certain topics, and simply want to bring the discussion back to substantive realities of Australian life.

Is Hawaii British because it has the Union Jack on its flag? Is the US British because it's president fulfills the role of a UK monarch from the 1700s? Is the US British because only it and the UK use imperial measures, or because it's most popular sports are British in origin? Some of the discussion of Australia's national character are as simplistic are those arguments.

A lot of these debates are about how people see the world. And to many Aussie eyes the UK and US can look very foreign, and at times more similar to each other than to us.

Last edited by Richard1098; 08-19-2014 at 04:47 PM..
 
Old 08-19-2014, 04:46 PM
 
471 posts, read 618,170 times
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Canada and Australia are part of the British commonwealth and the U.S.A. is more related to other countries (Africa, Mexico, Israel, Eastern European countries).
 
Old 08-20-2014, 06:43 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by drro View Post
Don't give yourself too much credit, it's not like these people had a choice. Most of the immigrants were convicts, unemployed or homeless and the British put them involuntarily on those ships to Australia, Canada or the US. Apparently, the US got the most of them. They are the reason expressions like 'a bridge in Brooklyn to sell' originated, they just scammed and cheated their way through life in their new home country.

In addition, it explains a lot about present day crime rates in the US. The apple does not fall far from the tree.
If you break down US crime stats by race you'll find that the citizens whose ancestors originated from Europe commit crimes at about the rate of Western Europeans.
 
Old 08-20-2014, 09:28 PM
 
Location: Toronto
15,106 posts, read 15,761,237 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MiamiResident View Post
Canada and Australia are part of the British commonwealth and the U.S.A. is more related to other countries (Africa, Mexico, Israel, Eastern European countries).
Walk around Toronto and Montreal - Canada's largest cities and you'd eat those words in a fast hurry.
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